This way students have less to memorize and every movement is more versatile.

Our punches are also our knife and stick strikes; our elbows are strikes, blocks and cuts; and our blocks are also strikes and standing grappling moves.  This approach makes San Do Kuen a truly systematic approach to training rather than a random collection of techniques which have no other real relationship or similarity.

Unfortunately, as in politics, martial artists then begin to disagree with each others’ approaches and perceive their position in the martial arts world based on these differences.  The MMA community looks down on the traditional stylists, then there is the grappling vs stand-up fighting divide, northern kung fu or southern style, the lists goes on and on.

These disagreements are based on divergent points of view which are formed sometimes by experience, and other times by lack of knowledge.  A person who has experience in multiple styles will naturally understand a technique differently than a person with a single style perspective.  A person with 3 decades of practice will undoubtedly have a different point of view than someone with less than 5 years of training.

Now enter the human ego and the world of martial arts becomes full of distractions.  Many people with a lot of experience spend a lot of time promoting or defending their point of view as the most effective, enlightened or valuable rather than continuing to develop and refine their approach through practice.  Then as time goes on, their point of view becomes more difficult to defend because they are out of touch with the active work of habitual martial arts practice.

All points of view hold some value, and all approaches can be effective (according to their point of view) if training is taken seriously and enough time is invested in study and practice.  The rest of the details are meaningless distractions.  No matter what kind of training a person pursues, or what the goal of that training might be (competition, self-defense, tactical military applications, etc), every human in martial arts will need to work hard continuously to become proficient and maintain their skills.

My point of view exists and I understand it, but I do not hold on to it too tightly.  I continue to refine and develop my art because a point of view should be fluid and able to adapt or evolve.  Regardless of how my point of view fits in with the martial arts world, it is still there.  Its similarity to or difference from any other point of view could be somewhat logical, but it is otherwise coincidental.

Part of what motivates me as an athlete and as an instructor is that I know what I know, and I also know what I don’t know.  Seeking out the things I don’t know is a big part of my search for personal development in martial arts.  It is much easier to remain humble when I visit other schools and get put in my place by their beginners and intermediate students.  The “thrill” of being near the bottom of the class in these other environments helps me stay focused on where I am going in my own career.

Many people become complacent in their particular realm or area of expertise and stagnate due to a lack of learning and an excess of teaching.  This complacency tends to soften the mind and body.  To maintain his edge, a martial artists must have a heightened sense of others and a breadth of perception which can only be reached through continuous study.  Only when we train out of our comfort zone do we acquire a deeper understanding of our own skills.

When I think of “art” I imagine a sculpture, a painting, a poem or  a song.  What these things share is that they are all forms of human expression.  In a painting (if you know what to look for) you can learn about the artist and her style of painting.  If you study several of her paintings over a period of years you can learn about her what mediums and subjects she prefers and how her style changes over time.

Martial arts systems and movements are a form of human expression in a very similar way.  If you are a martial arts student over several years you will get to know your instructor and his style.  You will begin to understand “who he is” in terms of his martial arts style.  The way a man teaches, learns and trains martial arts can be a window into his personality.

After enough time in martial arts, the movements and concepts that a person uses for their martial arts practice can be become part of them.  Every practice session or class then becomes their artistic expression.  In this there is a very difficult dilemma – without separating the artist from his medium or his subject, the martial artist risks loosing himself in that medium.  Imagine a painter painting a self portrait that was so lifelike and accurate that all the painter’s friends began interacting with the canvas rather than with the artist herself.

The human expression involved in combative movement is artistic because it requires the artist to become the subject of his own study.  The word “self” in self defense is the key to this realization.  To protect ourselves we must first discover who we are.  Only when we are aware of this can we find see the dynamic flow of combative movement as an amazing art that is uniquely human.

The Pros of Forms Training:

• Coordination & muscle memory development
• Balance training
• Cardiovascular exercise
• Leg strength
• Footwork pattern development
• No partner required
• Forms provide a framework for repetition training

The Cons of Forms Training:

• Very time-consuming
• Abstract movement patterns don’t always apply to combat
• Imitation does not always lead to creativity
• Limited feedback during movement (no resistance or variables)
• Looking good doing a form and fighting well are not the same skill
• Fighting has no pattern

As you can see, it is difficult to discern the value of forms without a lot of study and practice.  No matter what anyone says about forms, they do have value, its just that it takes a long time to discover it.  Most people do not have the patience or the discipline to tolerate the repetition required to master forms.

In martial arts, there are a myriad of styles and different techniques available for our exploration.  There are too many choices.  Some schools are very narrow in their focus – they teach one style.  Other systems claim to have combined 6 or more styles into one.

• What both these approaches lack is simplicity.

I have always loved martial arts because it teaches us to eliminate superfluous thoughts and movements so our bodies can become powerful.  These “extra” movements or wasted thoughts only distract from what works or is “true” for each person.  How can we get rid of the baggage we bring to our training if the technique we study is too specialized or complex?

Over time in training, most people hold on to the belief that they need to learn something completely new to improve their art.  The result is that people continue to add technique to their list with no real knowledge of how it fits together.  All the value in martial arts training lies not in the character or “style” with which we move, it is our translation of  that training into the context of self-defense situations.  Most of the “fluff” technique we cling to because it is part of our “style” is lost in that translation.  What we are left with is . . . simplicity:

• In self-defense, either you fight or you run.
  • If you fight, you either win or lose.
    • If you win, it does not matter what moves you used, it only matters that you were victorious.
    • If you lose, then it does not matter what moves you used, only that you were not effective.
• Win or lose, it is simply our own ability – our focus, discipline, awareness, confidence and fitness – that makes us effective or not.

Have people forgotten that when the Gracie brothers were cage fighting (in the UFC’s early stages) that you had to watch late-night cable to see these not-so-widely know fighters “ground and pound.”  The only people who watched these older fights were martial artists, or people who discovered these fights accidentally when channel surfing.  At some point, the UFC owners dumped tens of millions of dollars into marketing and promoting the UFC, and now it is almost as popular as any other sport in America.

My point is:  if someone made the same financial commitment to promote Thai Boxing or Kung Fu San Sao fighting, I am sure they would be become pretty popular as well.  People may be underestimating the effect of the almighty dollar when it comes to the UFC.  After all, many UFC fighting moves are taken from traditional martial arts, so why is the UFC so big? It is a business, and a very successful one, but is that because of the fighters or the owners . . .

Please don’t think that I am taking away from the athletic ability of the UFC fighters.  Their conditioning and fitness is unparalleled in the martial arts world, and I respect how much work it takes to get fit like they do – see my FIT TO FIGHT page.  At the same time, lets separate the athletes from their sport.  Athletes train and compete because it is in their nature to do so (as in any sport), but sports exist because of money.

The good things about UFC:

• MMA training requires a lot of conditioning and a high level of fitness.  This emphasis on physicality motivates many students and instructors to train harder.
• The training apparel designed for MMA is far superior to anything traditional.  Finally we have functional garments to train in.
• Because of it popularity, more people in the US are thinking and talking about martial arts, in general, than ever before.  That increased awareness is good for everyone in the martial arts world.

The not-so-good things about UFC:

• UFC fights are extremely violent.  Using martial arts skills for violent sport fighting might be morally questionable.
• Do we want our sons to idolize men who have cauliflower ear and enjoy beating other men up for a living?  UFC fighters may not be the best role-models for young people.
• As far as the martial arts goes, UFC is a sport with a referee, not a fight.  Sport fighting (boxing, wrestling, MMA, etc) will always be more limited in a combative sense because there are a limited amount of target areas.  In a street fight, any target is legal, there might be multiple attackers and/or weapons as well.

Anyone watching UFC or training in MMA should look beyond the marketing and hype and try to understand it for what it is, not how it is sold to the public.

When my students struggle with learning certain things, I see that as my fault as an instructor.  If most of the students are having trouble with the same thing, then I must not be teaching it right.  It is also possible that I am teaching it right, but based on who my students are, it is just not the right thing to teach.

Most martial arts programs are built around who the instructor is, not who the students are.  No wonder so many people have trouble learning!  A school, class or seminar exists because of the students, not the teacher.  Rather than forcing students to emulate the instructor’s skills so that they can one day get close, instructors should put their skills in a context that their students can understand.

All my instructors have at least 15 more years training than I do – how can emulate them?  How can I understand technique they way they do?  I can’t.  I have to take what they show me an relate it to who I am and what my own goals are.  It is simply unreasonable for martial arts instructors to build instructional programs around their own skills. This is not teaching.  Teaching involves understanding the needs and goals of the students and tailoring the instructional material appropriately.

The more technique you have, the weaker your average movement becomes.

Think about it . . . if I know 25 basic movements and I practice them over and over for 3 years, then any one of those movements will be pretty strong.  If, in the same 3 years, someone else learns 125 movements, then his average move will be 5 times weaker than mine!

In trying to create training programs that are more fun and varied, instructors often start adding technique after technique in order to keep everyone engaged during class.  Maybe the students have more fun, but their martial arts end up being worthless.  Not to mention that so much of the technique we see in martial arts is academic.  In other words, it works fine in class, but how effective would it be at speed, with power and a against a bigger, stronger opponent?  Complicated self-defense sequences or weapon disarms are cool for exploration and practice but they will not work for self-defense.   The simple martial arts movements will work on any kind of a opponent – knees, elbows, groin kicks, knee kicks, palm strikes, basic blocking and punching.  Maybe add a few stick and knife defenses (using the same simple hand and foot techniques), and there you go.